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Washington
In July 1965, two gigantic
fossilised dinosaur arms replete
with menacing claws were
unearthed in the remote southern
Gobi desert of Mongolia.
Measuring 2.4m, they were
the longest arms of any known
bipedal creature in Earth’s history.
But nearly everything else was
missing, leaving experts baffled
about the nature of this beast
with the behemoth arms. Half a
century later, the mystery has been
solved.
Scientists said yesterday two
almost complete skeletons of
the bizarre 70-million-year-old
creature, Deinocheirus mirificus
(meaning “unusual horrible
hand”), show it boasted a
combination of unorthodox traits,
including the famous arms, never
before seen in a single dinosaur.
At 11m long and 6.4 tonnes, it
was the largest known member
of a group of bird-like dinosaurs
called ornithomimosaurs (“ostrich
mimics”), the researchers said.
Its back was topped with long
spines that supported a sail-like
structure whose function remains
enigmatic. It had fused tail
vertebrae to support tail feathers.
Thriving in a river region, it
was an omnivore, eating fish and
plants with a beaked, toothless
snout that flared out to the sides
like the herbivorous duckbilled
dinosaurs. It had broad feet with
toes ending in squared-off hooves
that may have helped it stand on
wet ground.
Deinocheirus had wide hips and
moved slowly but was capable of
defending itself thanks to its sheer
size and its three ripping claws
on each hand. It was virtually as
big as the apex predator in the
neighborhood, Tyrannosaurus
rex’s cousin Tarbosaurus.
Scientists had speculated for
decades about Deinocheirus. It
was accurately recognised as a
type of theropod, the dinosaur
branch that includes giants like
T Rex but also the lineage that
evolved into birds — but what
type?
“Deinocheirus has remained
one of the most mysterious
dinosaurs in the world. We found
almost (complete) skeletons of
Deinocheirus and know now how
it looked, how big it was and what
it ate,” paleontologist Yuong-
Nam Lee, director of Geological
Museum at the Korea Institute
of Geoscience and Mineral
Resources in Daejeon, South
Korea, said.
University of Maryland
paleontologist Thomas Holtz,
who wrote a commentary
accompanying the study in the
journal Nature, said no one could
have predicted its astonishing
array of attributes.
“I’ve literally waited my whole
life to see Deinocheirus finally
unveiled,” Holtz said.
Some bad luck almost prevented
the unveiling. The two new
skeletons were found in 2006 and
2009 at Gobi sites in Mongolia.
Both suspiciously were missing
their heads and other key parts.
The scientists realised those had
been poached by illegal fossil
collectors, with parts sold off to
private collectors.
The missing parts from the
2009 excavation ended up with
a collector in Germany but
fortuitously were seen by Belgian
paleontologist Pascal Godefroit,
who recognised what they were
and informed Lee and other
scientists.
Lee said the researchers
persuaded the collector to donate
the fossils because of their
importance to science. The fossils
were returned to Mongolia in
May. But Lee said the 2006 fossils
remain missing. — Reuters
Berlin
United States documentary
maker Laura Poitras has found
herself in many a risky situation in
Iraq and Yemen.
But she never felt in as much
danger as when she was filming
Edward Snowden in a Hong
Kong hotel while he prepared to
blow the whistle on massive secret
sur veillance programmes run by
the US government.
Those tense eight days form
the centrepiece of Citizenfour,
her account of how the former
National Security Agency (NSA)
contractor decided in 2013 to
release to the media tens of
thousands of classified documents,
and the global repercussions of
that action.
“I think he (Snowden) was
certainly in danger and I certainly
had a lot of fear. I have worked
in conflict zones but I felt more
fear working on this film than I
did when working in Baghdad,”
Poitras said.
“It was clear for me, when we
started communicating over
e-mail, that if he was legitimate
we were going to anger some of
the most powerful people in the
world, and people who would
try to make this stop. These are
powerful institutions and they
have an enormous reach,” she
added.
Citizenfour, opens in select US
movie theatres today.
It takes its title from the
moniker Snowden used when he
first approached Poitras through
encrypted e-mails with a view to
exposing how the NSA gathers
data on the internet activities and
phone calls of millions of ordinary
Americans and dozens of world
leaders.
Poitras shared a Pulitzer prize
for her role in publicising that
information, and Citizenfour is
being tipped by awards watchers
for an Oscar nomination in
January. Variety called it “an
extraordinary portrait” of
Snowden, while Salon.com
described it as “an urgent,
gripping real-life spy story
that should be seen by every
American”.
Outwardly calm in the film,
Snowden becomes jumpy at an
insistent hotel fire alarm. At one
point, he dives under a red hood
to cloak his laptop and password
from any overhead cameras in the
room.
When Poitras first started
communicating with Snowden,
now 31 and reunited in Russia
with his girlfriend, she assumed
he would remain anonymous, and
had no expectation of filming him.
“But at some point he said, ‘I
don’t want to conceal my identity
and I won’t be able to. They will
find out ’. He had made peace with
that, but he never asked to be
filmed.
“He didn’t want the story to
be about him. He wanted the
public to understand what the
government was doing. (But)
I said, even if you don’t want
it to be about you, the way the
news works it will become about
you. And you need to be able to
articulate your motivations,” she
said.
Poitras hopes the documentary
will allow audiences to reach their
own conclusions about Snowden,
who is wanted in the United
States on charges brought under
the Espionage Act and is viewed
as either a traitor or a hero.
She said the impact of his
revelations was much greater than
expected, and says there are more
disclosures to come.
“ Even though people claim we
are being slow, these stories take
a really long time to report and
to understand the documents,”
Poitras said.
She relocated from New York
to Berlin while working on
Citizenfour for fear of having her
material seized.
“There is something about the
way sur veillance works that gets
inside your head. I can’t assume
my life is private any more. I go
to sleep every night and I think
about the NSA, and I wake up
and I think about the NSA,” she
said. — Reuters
Greymouth Star
Opinion/Features
4 - Friday, October 24, 2014
We appreciate the value of the Letters to the Editor
column as a public forum for West Coasters and
welcome your opinion and suggestions.
Letters may be submitted by post, fax or e-mail and
must include your name, address, phone number
and — except for e-mails — your signature. Noms
de plume are not accepted.
Please keep your letters honest, respectful and
within 300 words. Letter writers will generally not
be published more often than weekly. The Editor
reserves the right to edit or not publish letters,
especially those that are offensive or too long.
Post to PO Box 3, Greymouth, fax to 768 6205 or
email to editor@greystar.co.nz
uLetters to the editor
1648 - The Peace of Westphalia ends the
Thirty Years War and effectively destroys the
Holy Roman Empire.
1901 - Anna Edson Taylor becomes first
person to go over Niagara Falls in the US in
a barrel and survive. She was trying to raise
enough money to pay her mortgage.
1915 - Some 25,000 women march in New
York City, demanding the right to
vote.
1917 - Pivotal Battle of Caporetto
in Italy (now Kobarid, in Slovenia)
begins during World War One.
1929 - Black Thursday — the New
York Stock Exchange loses 12.8% of
its value in one day.
1935 - Italy invades Ethiopia.
1940 - The 40-hour work week goes into effect
in the US.
1951 - US President Harry Truman formally
ends the state of war with Germany.
1989 - US television evangelist Jim Bakker is
jailed for 45 years for swindling his followers.
uWest Coast yesteryear
uToday in history
Aurangzeb, last of India’s Mugul emperors
(1618-1707); Antonie van Leeuwenhoek,
Dutch biologist and microscopist (1632-1723);
J P Richardson, The Big Bopper, American
musician (1930-1959); Bill Wyman, British
rock musician (Rolling Stones)
(1936-); F Murray Abraham, US
actor (1939-); Kevin Kline, US
actor (1947-); Malcolm Turnbull,
Australian politician (1954-); Simon
Gallaher, Australian entertainer
(1958-); Ian Baker-Finch,
Australian golfer (1960-); Monica,
US singer (1980-); Zac Posen, American
fashion designer (1980-); Keyshia Cole,
American singer (1983-); Wayne Rooney,
English soccer player (1985-) .
“ Happiness is not a horse; you cannot harness
it.” — Russian proverb.
“The evil deeds of a wicked man ensnare him;
the cords of his sin hold him fast. He will die
for lack of discipline, led astray by his own
great folly.” — Proverbs 5:22-23.
Shortly before
4.15pm yesterday, the
body of Kumara-born
Miss Margaret Isobel
Henham was found washed up on a sand and
shingle strip not far from the tiphead on the
Cobden side of the Grey River. Her death
by drowning here ended the closest Coast
link with the worst rail disaster in the history
of New Zealand — the horrifying Tangiwai
tragedy.
More than 120 people died in that Christmas
holiday disaster on December 24,1953,
when roaring flood waters washed away the
railway bridge at Tangiwai and the fully-
laden Wellington express plunged off the
sagging rails. Miss Henham was sitting in
the first carriage of the wrecked train — a
smashed section from which very few escaped
alive — but she sur vived by a miracle, rushed
to hospital with bruising, a back injury and
lacerations.
The discovery of the body of the 49-year-old
Greymouth hairdresser yesterday was made by
two Cobden whitebait fishermen, Mr Graham
Thomson and 17-year-old Ken Markland. The
police do not believe there are any suspicious
circumstances surrounding her drowning, but
investigations are continuing.
A middle-aged mine under viewer lost half a
finger in the Roa colliery yesterday morning.
Injured was 53-year-old John Randal Williams,
of Harper Street, Blackball. Mr Williams
caught his right hand in the underground
haulage system of the mine. Half of his index
finger was severed and the other fingers were
lacerated.
He was taken to the Greymouth Hospital for
treatment and discharged late this morning.
uToday’s birthdays
uFood for thought
uFaith
Printed and published by the
Greymouth Evening Star Co Limited
3 Werita Street, PO Box 3, Greymouth
Phone
03 769 7900 (office)
769 7913 (editorial)
768 6205 (fax)
office@greystar.co.nz
Editor
Paul Madgwick
editor@greystar.co.nz
Sports Editor
Viv Logie
sport@greystar.co .nz
Chief Reporter
Laura Mills
lauram@greystar.co .nz
Reporters
03 769 7913
Hokitika
03 755 8422
Reporters
Harry
Truman
1964
Wayne
Rooney
PICTURE: Reuters
Documentary maker Laura Poitras in April this year.
Documentary breaks
open sinister sur veillance
Mystery of huge dinosaur arms solved
PICTURE: Reuters
An artist’s impression of Deinocheirus mirificus.
A
s Oscar Pistorius spent
his first days behind bars
this week, a suspected
child rapist and murderer
went on trial at the same
Pretoria court in a case
that has also provoked fierce debate about
crime and punishment in post-apartheid
South Africa.
Although the two defendants, one
wealthy and white, the other poor and
black, are from opposite ends of a still-
divided society, both cases have revealed an
alarming lack of faith in the justice system
of the Rainbow Nation.
In her jailing of Olympic and Paralympic
star Pistorius, convicted of the culpable
homicide of his model girlfriend, Judge
Thokozile Masipa stressed the need for
rehabilitation and an “element of mercy ”.
South Africa, she said, had moved on
from the dark ages of an eye-for-an-eye to
a “modern era”, a reflection of the moral
idealism that took root 20 years ago when
Nelson Mandela became the country’s first
black president, ending decades of brutal
and oppressive white-minority rule.
The reaction to Pistorius’ five-year
sentence — likely to mean just 10 months
in jail — was swift and over whelmingly
critical, suggesting most people in a society
plagued by violent crime do not share
Masipa’s views.
After her controversial decision to rule
out a murder verdict, 72% of respondents
in a television poll dismissed the sentence
as too lenient. Many black South Africans
said it was another example of wealthy
whites securing preferential justice.
“It ’s because he has money. If it was a
black man he would have got 15 or 20
years,” Vusi Khoza, a 42-year-old minibus
taxi driver waiting at a Johannesburg bus-
station, said.
While the anger in the Twittersphere is
unlikely to translate into violence against
Pistorius, the same cannot be said for
Ntokozo Hadebe, the 28-year-old accused
who followed directly in the athlete’s
footsteps in the dock of the Pretoria High
Court yesterday.
When he was arrested a year ago in
Diepsloot, a vast shanty town north of
Johannesburg, a mob was baying for blood,
burning tyres outside the police station
where he was being held and demanding he
be handed over for instant justice.
“ Touch my child and you die next,” one
placard read.
Hadebe’s charge sheet reveals why Judge
Masipa’s notions of balanced and merciful
justice belong to a different world for the
many South Africans living in tin-shack
townships that have changed little since the
end of apartheid.
Hadebe, who pleaded “not guilty” on all
counts, is accused of the rape, and then
murder, of three girls aged five, three
and two, in Diepsloot in September and
October 2013.
The body of the oldest victim, Anelisa
Mkhonto, was dumped beside a rubbish
bin. She had been beaten about the head
and suffocated with a blue plastic bag.
The other two victims, cousins Thokozani
and Yonelisa Mali, were found partially
clothed and strangled in a communal toilet.
In giving evidence on the first day of
Hadebe’s trial, Anelisa’s grandmother,
Bongiwe Mcubuse, broke down as she
recounted the moment refuse collectors
told her the mutilated body of the child had
been found.
“I’m not sure whether the court will give
me justice or relief,” she later told reporters
outside the court. “ The justice that I want
is for the person who did this to disappear
from society forever — three life sentences.
But you never know with the courts. You
can’t really trust them.”
Anyone convicted of the kind of charges
Hadebe faces would undoubtedly be
punished severely in a South African court,
regardless of their race or wealth.
But Mcubuse’s sentiments, alluded to by
Masipa when she spoke of the “reputation
of the administration of justice”, run deep
in South Africa’s townships and are a major
factor in the vigilantism that stalks their
dusty streets.
“It does reflect a sense of desperation
about crime in many of these areas and a
sense that all too frequently the courts don’t
deliver justice,” Rachel Jewkes, a gender
violence expert at the Medical Research
Council in Pretoria, said.
Police do not keep specific data on
lynchings, saying they are categorised
only as assault, attempted murder or
murder, but a one-off analysis of murders
by investigators in 2008-09 reveals street
justice as a major problem.
The figures from that year defined 4.8%
of the total 18,148 murders as “vigilantism”,
a ratio that extrapolates to 4000 people in
Africa’s most advanced economy dying as a
result of mob justice in the past five years.
It is not confined to the economic
heartland of Johannesburg and Pretoria.
In the Cape Town township of
Khayelitsha, a complete breakdown in trust
between public and police was blamed for
what Western Cape premier Helen Zille
termed a “plague of vigilante killings”.
In March 2012, eight suspected
criminals were killed by mobs, according
to an inquiry into the broken policing in
Khayelitsha, home to an estimated
one million people.
The inquiry, which wrapped up in August,
also detailed shocking failings by the police
and courts.
In one incident, a woman in her 70s,
Adelaide Ngongwana, was shot in the leg
by officers pursuing a stolen car. Despite her
injuries, Ngongwana was told she would
have to walk to hospital for treatment.
In another, the trial of four men accused
of stoning to death lesbian Zoliswa
Nkonyana because she refused to use
the men’s toilet in a shantytown bar was
postponed 45 times, delaying justice by four
years.
It is with such failings in mind that
the State allowed the Pistorius trial to
be broadcast live, a South African first,
demystifying the courts for ordinary people
who tuned in to see a black female judge
surrounded by computers and flat-screen
televisions presiding over white male
lawyers.
However, in the case of Pistorius, the live
broadcast strategy may have backfired given
that many have seen what they believe to be
justice not being done.
“ You tell people that the state was arguing
that Oscar was guilty of murder but they
didn’t prove it,” Fhumulani Khumela, a
court reporter for the Sowetan, a tabloid
named after the massive Johannesburg
township, said. “But they don’t care —
they think Oscar got off a murder charge
because he’s white, he’s got money and he’s
got the big lawyers.”
For many, the storm of social media
criticism aimed at Pistorius as he was
carted off to the hospital wing of Pretoria’s
main prison also contrasted starkly with the
treatment dished out to other suspected or
convicted killers.
“If you’re wealthy, you get lynched
on-line,” Gareth Newham, a crime and
justice researcher at the Pretoria-based
Institute for Security Studies, said.
“If you’re poor, you get lynched in the
street.” — Reuters
Justice served?
PICTURE: Getty Images
Oscar Pistorius in court for his sentencing this week.